Latinalicious: The South America Diaries

By Becky Wicks

She's lifted the burqa on Dubai, and ate, preyed and loved Bali. Now Becky Wicks heads to South America for a bit of LATINALICIOUS !
In her latest laugh-out-loud travel memoir, intrepid traveller Becky Wicks sets her sights on both the natural and - ahem! - man-made attractions of South America, and discovers that while gauchos aren't always hot, strangely, birdwatchers are ...From dodging naked Aussies on Bolivia's Death Road and diving with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands to conquering the Inca trail (just), being crushed at the Rio Carnival and having her fake designer bag snatched in a Colombian ghetto, Becky tangos, gallops, bikes and treks her way through this spectacular continent, offering heaps of handy travel tips and hilarious insights along the way. And experiencing a good few vino tinto hangovers, too.PRAISE FOR BURQALICIOUS'A funny, easy, breezy, heartwarming read'New WomanPRAISE FOR BALILICIOUS'Balilicious made me laugh so hard I almost spilled my Bintang'Justin Steinlauf, tNt Magazine'the real-life Bridget Jones hits the road ... this book is pee-your-pants funny'Sarah Alderson, author of Hunting Lila and Losing Lila'She's done something amazing - convinced me this is a place I should take the time to explore'Sassi Sam, book blogger'Becky wicks at her endearingly honest best. Balilicious comes with Bali-belly laughs galore'Katie Spain, the Adelaide* magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Dec 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781743098295

Becky Wicks

Becky Wicks was born in 1979. She attended the Gleed School for Girls, also known as 'The Virgin Megastore' in small town Spalding, Lincolnshire, England. She studied media production at Lincoln University, but was writing freelance from the age of 14. She arrived in NYC in 2001 at age 21. She worked for a production company and wrote for a NYC restaurant guide, as well as a Brooklyn community mag (also dated the editor, who broke her heart). Back in London, from 2004 she worked for a travel and entertainment dot com which led her to theatre-land, interviewing West end actors and reviewing more restaurants.

Book preview

02/07

Ecuadorean addictions and ash clouds …

As Rosa rolled the hard-boiled egg across my forehead I wasn’t as disturbed as you might think, even though I was sitting on a plastic table in a five-star hotel bathroom in my underwear, being chattered at in Spanish by a lady I’d met only the day before in the herb and flower market. The truth is, I’ve probably done stranger things in hotel bathrooms.

The idea of a South American ‘Limpia’ treatment — an ancient Andean ritual intended as a means of energy equilibrium restoration — appealed not just because I was feeling pretty short of breath at 2800 metres in Quito, but because I’d had a night of debaucheries just twelve hours previously with an Ecuadorean guesthouse owner called Salvador. I was knackered.

Luckily, everything around me was luxurious and splendid at the Casa Gangotena, a restored historic mansion overlooking Plaza San Francisco — Quito’s old town. This five-star hotel is also located just twenty-five kilometres from the equator; thus far, I’ve never been so close. It’s quite exciting. It’s also really cold.

When I stepped out of the airport in Quito, the goosebumps had attacked my bare arms with a vengeance. Turns out that while Ecuador’s furthest reaches boast sticky, tropical jungles and beaches, its capital city, guarded by an army of snow-capped mountains, is currently freezing. And having spent the last eight months in Bali, I don’t even own a coat. I think I may have to go shopping.

Anyway, there’s lots to do and tons more to plan, because this is the very first leg of my South American journey, a trip that will hopefully take me to some of the most scenic, exciting and inspiring destinations on the planet. From Ecuador I’m flying down to Buenos Aires to do a Spanish course and then … well, honestly, I haven’t got past that bit yet. I’ve downloaded a few guidebooks and reached out to friends for suggestions, so I’m kind of hoping things will fall into place.

It’s funny how we can just do this nowadays, isn’t it? I mean, planning a journey across several countries in which English isn’t the primary language would have taken months, if not years of preparation, say, thirty years ago. Maps, a compass, a stack of paper and envelopes and a calendar with a set date on which to post a letter to your mum/gran/distant gypsy relative Rosie, who’s expecting you at some point in the wilds of some Peruvian jungle destination, for which you need to book a boat ticket thirty-three days in advance from a tour operator that may or may not still exist on a certain shady street in La Paz … Jesus. No thanks. These days you just pop your smartphone in your pocket, pack some pants and get on the plane. Job done.

It’s such a huge continent, obviously, and there are definitely things I’m itching to see: the salt flats in Bolivia, Machu Picchu, hammerhead sharks in the Galápagos, the homes of Malbec red and Eva Peron in Argentina, the hot Brazilian men in Rio’s Copacabana, coffee plantations in Colombia, the strapping gauchos and glacial walls in the national parks of Patagonia. My friend Autumn, who’s a photographer, is coming to join me for a while and we’re already bouncing ideas around about a cruise through Tierra del Fuego, which is literally as close as you can get to Antarctica without going to Antarctica. Just thinking about it all makes me need to lie down.

Better just start with where I am now, in Ecuador with my good friend Farzana, who’s just spent a month in Colombia and is all rosy cheeked with a freshly pumped ego, thanks to the flattering ways of its men. I added Medellín and the tropical Caribbean climes of Cartagena to my travel list as soon as she started talking.

While we’re here in Quito however (must try not to rush ahead), we can actually take a trip to the centre of the world and stand on the line between both hemispheres — just for kicks. I’m interested to see if the water really does flush a different way down the toilet on each side. Farzana tells me we could Google it now and find out, but I want it to be a surprise.

Also, I’m told if we ride the TelefériQo, one of the world’s highest aerial lifts, which isn’t too far from here, we can see up to thirteen volcanoes if it’s sunny. That’s a lot of volcanoes. I’ve got to admit, it’s a little unnerving being around so many. Stratovolcano Guagua Pichincha, just thirteen kilometres west of here, sent a whopping great mushroom cloud of ash up over Quito in 1999, covering the city.

I guess people thought it was safe, especially the ones who set off to climb it on that fateful day, because the last time it erupted before that was in 1660, which is so long ago that everyone was probably lulled into a false sense of security, thinking, ‘Active, my arse — that thing’s as dead as a dodo.’ I’m keeping my eye on it. I don’t trust it in the slightest.

Those stinging nettles were still stinging the next day!

As Rosa fetched a fistful of stinging nettles from her arrangement of healing herbs in the sink, I felt another spark of excitement at being right at the start of a brand new adventure, with absolutely no idea of what will happen to me and around me over the next eight months. Then, as I smiled in sweet contentment, she whipped my entire body into one throbbing pulse with the nettles, causing welts to spring up on my thighs.

‘Are they supposed to be causing this reaction?’ I asked her in alarm, studying the rising bumps manifesting like alien spawn under my skin.

‘Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish Spanish,’ she said, thrusting her arms out ebulliently and smacking me again on the neck with the nettles for good measure.

Of course, that’s not what Rosa said exactly, but after just four days in South America I don’t understand one word of Spanish so that’s all I heard. In fact, I’m still not entirely sure if her nettle therapy worked to rid my body of evil, energy-zapping forces just now, or if the welts were just punishment for what she saw in my eyes as my mind drifted off, back to last night, with Salvador. Oh, Salvador.

If there’s one thing I’ve garnered in the space of just four days, aside from the fact that no one understands me, and that I really should construct some sort of emergency volcano eruption survival kit, it’s that the men here in South America are a different species entirely. Quite frankly, I’m shocked that I’ve never thought to come here before. I’m absolutely, one hundred per cent sure that South American men are what I’ve been missing in my life.

Why? Well, let me tell you why. They’re animated, like cartoon characters bouncing about on a screen. They’re made of sun and sex and spontaneity, and passion oozes out of every pore. I’ve never known anything like it. When I first met Salvador he greeted Farzana and me at the door and led us on a tour of his guesthouse, explaining in almost perfect English the intricacies of every restored seat cushion and the plumbing involved in turning a creaky house with two bathrooms into a hotel with seventeen. I was listening, but I wasn’t. I was noticing how every movement was a dance, every step a sinewy act of seduction via toned arms, a broad chest and a sculpted arse in stonewashed jeans.

My hands started running through my hair. My lashes started batting, I straightened my outfit and moistened my lips, by which time he had lapsed into charismatic Spanish mode and was speaking to another guest regarding paying her bill. I noticed Jesus on a cross, on a chain around his neck. When he turned back to us he was probably only talking about the fact that we would need to hold our hands for five seconds on the toilet button if we were going to flush it properly without the risk of clogging, but my brain was already in his bedroom. My hands were already tearing off his clothes.

We went out that night. Farzana went home early. I never made it back to his guesthouse. Instead, Salvador and I danced flirtatiously in a club and went back to his friend’s house, where we drank from a bottle of watermelon vodka and I told myself it didn’t matter in the slightest if I never had another conversation in English, ever again. Verbal communication means nothing, I thought, as he danced around the kitchen. Who needs verbal banter, I thought, as he pulled me to my feet, took the bottle from my lips and pressed against me so hard I could feel every inch of him wedged against every inch of me.

I later learned Salvador had refused his friend’s requests for a dirty 4 a.m. orgy. I never got a say in the matter. In my head, the whole evening was very romantic, but then again it’s easy to hear what you want to hear when you’re drunk and you don’t know the Spanish word for threesome.

Anyway, Salvador was a perfect gentleman, letting me use his friend’s toothbrush without telling him and getting me back to the guesthouse before 9.30 a.m., by which time Farzana was already halfway to a cloud forest with a man called Dante for some zip-lining. I spent the entire day in a state somewhere between sleep and feeling that a gecko with a pickaxe was removing my frontal lobe. Then I dragged myself to the Casa Gangotena and booked myself the Limpia. So yeah, now you know why I needed those reinvigorating nettles.

You should be able to bottle it, you know. A few drops of Latin American charm would make numerous countries I’ve visited infinitely more enjoyable. If you’re the sort of person who revels in the delicious feeling of being under a spell, I can highly recommend a trip to Ecuador surrounded by this enchanting species … but then I haven’t been to Argentina yet. I’ve heard the men are even hotter there.

04/07

Musings from the middle of the world …

The mammoth thirty-metre high monument marking the Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) outside Quito was built in the wrong place back in 1982. This means that while you can have a lovely time walking around the ethnographic museum inside, looking at headless figures in ancient llama wool shawls and photos of men with no teeth, all you’re really doing when you get to the top is standing on a big lump of concrete in the middle of … well, nowhere.

The actual line where Charles-Marie de La Condamine, a curly-haired, pointy-nosed French mathematician, made the measurements to prove the world wasn’t flat in 1736, runs through Museo de Sitio Intiñan, which is about a five-minute drive up the road.

No one seems to mind going to both the monument and the museum, though, especially not the tour guides. Ours charged us AU$40 each to drive us to both spots, and then sat in her car smoking cigarettes while we guided ourselves.

Back to clever-clogs Charles. I can’t actually believe he got the chance to prove the world wasn’t round. Reading about him, he sounds like quite a guy, one who went on to do all sorts of cool stuff. At first, though, he really had to prove himself:

‘Hello men-fellows, I do believe the world bulges in the middle.’

‘Come now, Charles, last week you said earth wasn’t the only planet in the sky.’

‘It’s not.’

‘Come now!’

‘Well, my friends, the King of France and the French Royal Academy of Sciences are sending me on an expedition to prove the world is not perfectly flat. I’m going to prove this as soon as I reach Ecuador. And after that I’m going to map the Amazon River based on astronomical observations. And after I’ve done all that, there will be a sixty-seven-kilometre-wide crater on the moon dedicated to me.’

‘Oh Charles, dearest man. You are such a delightful dreamer. Have some mead before you go?’

While we’re talking of impressive men, I think things are over with Salvador. Not that they ever really began, since he lives in a guesthouse with his mum, dad and brother, where the floorboards creak if you so much as look at them, so seeing him after the almost-orgy night was tricky. We did enjoy some fun textual relations as Farzana and I took part in some interesting experiments at the Museo de Sitio Intiñan, however.

These experiments included balancing a raw egg on a nail, which in other locations is impossible, apparently. I can’t imagine why you’d ever want to balance an egg on a nail but there you go. Actually, I really do think that if you’re going to make people do something this pointless it should at least be something fun, like slapping a stranger’s face with a kipper on each hemisphere and videoing it for a special exhibit in the museum nearby … perhaps in place of the llama wool shawl collection, which is a bit boring. But that’s just me.

Another experiment was the toilet flushing one, which I was very excited about, although I left feeling rather underwhelmed by this, too. Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting and everything but really, if you’ve gone all the way to the middle of the earth to answer a probing question about a toilet flush and someone whips out a sink, you’re going to feel a little cheated.

Yes, they demonstrated what is scientifically known as the Coriolis effect with a sink, and some leaves that spun as the water was drained. Toilets and sinks are right next to each other in the showroom, too. How hard would it be to get a big loo and attach some wheels on it and do the experiment with that? Honestly.

Oh, but if you’re wondering whether the water really does drain in different directions on different sides of the equator, I can tell you …

SPOILER ALERT

It does. It really does!!!

Back to Salvador. I told him I’d had fun from the Northern Hemisphere. He told me he’d had fun too as I stepped into the Southern Hemisphere.

As we followed our tour guide (not the driver, a different one because ours was still smoking in her car) around some of the original, hundred-year-old homes that belonged to the local indigenous people and gazed in awe at gruesome-looking shrunken heads, Salvador requested my friendship on Facebook. Eager to show Farzana some photos of his exposed six pack, I accepted.

And then I found out he has a girlfriend.

She’d written ‘amore’ on his wall at precisely the same time as we’d been making out against another wall in his friend’s kitchen and somehow he’d found a spare moment to ‘like’ her comment shortly afterwards. Hmm.

All is still well and good because Farzana and I are heading over to the Galápagos shortly anyway. We booked the return flights and a five-night cruise for just under AU$1800 each from a tour operator here in Quito. Sealing the last-minute deal involved a bit of a kerfuffle because here in Ecuador they don’t like you using credit cards and generally whack on extortionate fees if you do. At the same time, you can only get roughly $600 out of the ATM in one day, so if you’re booking a tour that costs more than that and have to pay it all in one go, like you do when you go last minute, you’re buggered.

We wound up trying to get out of the credit card fee for about an hour. We even turned on the tears and told the operator we’d be poor for the rest of our trip if we paid any more. But it was kind of hard to cry poverty when we were booking time on a yacht.

When we couldn’t get out of it, we were forced to pay half in cash and the rest on the card, with a ludicrous extra eighteen per cent on top. Ouch. Avoid a similar sting and take a lot of cash with you to Ecuador, or withdraw the maximum amount on three or four consecutive days before you book your Galápagos trip.

Oh, you can visit the Galápagos Islands for less than $1800, of course. But Farzana and I have decided to splash out as we splash about. While we don’t mind budget accommodation on land, the last thing we need to experience is a rocking dorm room at sea with backpackers puking even more than usual over the side of their bunk beds. When Farzana leaves I’ve got a good eight months ahead of me, staying in hostels. Right now I’m enjoying every little luxury I can.

12/07

Boobies and other star attractions …

Carrots. It’s always the carrots. Even if you haven’t eaten any carrots, they always seem to show up first when you’re retching over the toilet bowl, wondering when the hell your stomach will settle and leave you free to roll into a self-pitying fetal ball on the floor. This is at least what Farzana told me after a night chucking her guts up out on the deck, and in the metre-wide closet that constitutes the bathroom in our five-star yacht.

Of course, it could have been papaya, I reasoned, the fruity orange Ecuadorean cousin that also chooses to surface first during terrible bouts of seasickness. But anyway, beginning our highly anticipated Galápagos cruise the other day, we sailed overnight from Cerro Dragon on Isla Santa Cruz, to Post Office Bay on Isla Floreana and realised that poor Farzana had left her sea legs somewhere on a pristine beach surrounded by sea lions. After a while I had no choice but to leave her lying in a crumpled heap on the five-star navy pinstriped sun lounge, while I prayed to the dimpled face of a seriously oversized moon for her recovery.

Ah, the moon! What a sight to behold here on the equator: the way it hangs in its Milky Way hammock between a squillion stars. You won’t see as many stars as you will here anywhere else on this planet, trust me, not even if you go to every Oscars after-party ever thrown by Elton John.

The Tip Top II cruise ship (one of the Galápagos’s original fleet vessels) swayed like Beyonce’s hips in a concert arena as I studied the black pin-pricked blanket of the Galápagos sky, and I was left in no doubt whatsoever that we, as humans sailing though this life, are not alone. We simply can’t be. Leaning over the railings that first night, I got lost in the majesty, the romantic possibility of galaxies stretching light years into infinity, until Farzana brought me back to earth by releasing another batch of vegetables.

The reason for such a spectacular display of stars above the Galápagos, according to our knowledgeable guide Andreas, is that on the equator you’re looking at twice the number of constellations. The stars you can see from both the Southern and the Northern Hemisphere are all spread out before you in the centre of the world, crisscrossing in the night like lonesome gypsy travellers wandering at last into each other’s paths. Some little stars are so bright and alive, they actually do twinkle.

Our guide Andreas loves nature like you wouldn’t believe. He told me on our second night, as a group of us lay out on the sun lounges counting constellations, that when he drank ayahuasca in the Amazon rainforest he communicated with ‘the spirit of the vine’ herself. Ever since then, he’s been able to communicate almost psychically with the animals.

You might laugh, but I swear, as we continue to walk together through some of the most insanely beautiful landscapes on our various island excursions, the animals we encounter don’t bat an eyelid. Not just that, but Andreas can point out every single animal and bird he promises we’ll see, usually within moments of promising it. It’s almost like he calls them and they appear.

Fascinated, we wandered around huddled groups of charcoal-coloured marine iguanas on our first day, their red underbellies glowing like embers. We saw albatrosses with humongous yellow beaks eyeing us idly from their grassy nests as we passed, just inches away. Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttled in their scarlet droves over the rocks. Sea lions were everywhere. In fact, while most people who visit the Galápagos might ask ‘will I definitely get to see the sea lions?’ before they book their tickets (like we did), the truth is that you’ll be hard-pressed not to see one here. You’ll see thousands of sea lions and, yes, you can swim with them and, yes, they actually want you to swim with them, too!

They’ll chase your boat through the blue. They’ll waddle up to you on the beach and waddle back into the surf, and then turn around to see if you’re following, like puppy dogs. If you’re not, they’ll do the same again until you step into the water. This experience alone made the cruise worthwhile, I think. You don’t have to do a cruise in order to see the sea lions, though. You can go out to the islands on day tours from Santa Cruz if you buy a $400 (average) return flight from Quito.

It’s worth remembering, however, that most of these day tours are overpriced and the guides — many of them locals with no qualifications — are known to be considerably less enthusiastic than actual naturalists, like Andreas, who are paid really well to work on the higher-end cruises and will tell you so many interesting facts as you go that your head will spin.

One field trip the other day saw us beaching our Zodiac (an inflatable dinghy for the uninformed) on sands so white I thought I’d be blinded. The whiteness sloped down into some of the clearest seawater on earth. It was as translucent as tap water. This was Gardner Bay, Isla Española — in the far southeast of the Galápagos archipelago and almost four million years old. Make sure your cruise includes a stop here and don’t book it if it doesn’t. This is without a doubt one of the most unspoiled … no, make that the most unspoiled part of the planet I have ever laid eyes on. It was actually surreal.

Lazing on this beach we were able to stand, sit or even lie within one metre of the sea lions, ‘but no closer than one metre — that’s the rule,’ Andreas told us sternly. We all spent hours posing for the obligatory photos as these creatures, some of them huge and menacing-looking, some just curious babies, eyed us in equal wonder. There is seriously nothing cuter than a baby sea lion. And there’s nothing more impressive than spotting a cluster of a thousand or so marine iguanas, just lounging in the sun like dinosaurs who forgot to become extinct.

Surely a dream-come-true moment.

Andreas told us one story of a man who was caught at the airport with a marine iguana in his backpack. God knows how he thought he would get it to wherever he was going, but these creatures are so placid it’s not hard to believe that you could scoop a few up and whisk away with them. They smell pretty bad, though. I’m not sure you’d want one, really.

None of the animals seem to have any fear of humans in the Galápagos, and Andreas explained that it’s because none of them — maybe with the exception of that poor iguana — have ever been harmed by humans. Every few months, they shut certain islands to cruise ship passengers and open different ones to encourage the continuation of each natural habitat without disturbance. The US$100 entrance fee, which everyone must pay in cash upon arrival at the Galápagos airport, is spent purely on maintaining this unique part of the world and its precious, rare ecosystems.

Charles Darwin first noted that the finches on each Galápagos island varied in the shape and size of their beaks, and thus, his theory of natural selection was born in 1839. It appeared that these finches had originally come from mainland South America, that they had colonised the islands at some point and had then over time evolved their distinct beaks according to their needs in each different island environment.

To this day, the Galápagos National Park Service and conservation teams are so concerned with keeping every island immaculate and individual that the cruise ship staff have been told to make all passengers wash their feet and shoes after each island visit to avoid cross-contamination. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been hosed down on this cruise. I’m actually surprised Farzana and I weren’t put in quarantine before we were allowed to visit … but then, the authorities aren’t aware of my filthy thoughts about Salvador (sigh).

Today we got to visit the Charles Darwin Research Station, but unfortunately we’re just a few weeks too late to see its star, Lonesome George, the sole remaining Pinta Island tortoise. He refused to mate, apparently. He just wasn’t a horny tortoise, so his entire subspecies fizzled out when he did, in June. Poor guy, though — all that pressure. Imagine if you and only you were responsible for the continuation of your entire race. It was all too much for George. He preferred eating cucumbers.

Before humans sailed up, the Galápagos Islands were home to literally tens of thousands of giant tortoises. The numbers fell to near extinction but there’s now a recovery program run by the Charles Darwin Foundation, and it has been successful in bringing the numbers back up to over 20,000. You can walk around the research station and learn all about them, which, to be honest, isn’t really the most exciting thing in the world. They don’t do much, tortoises.

The blue-footed booby is perhaps the creature that most people look forward to encountering in the Galápagos. I won’t bother with any puns now and, trust me, neither will you once you’re here, because everyone does it for you, all over the place. You can’t walk down the street in Santa Cruz without being accosted by a man displaying his rail of ‘I heart Boobies’ T-shirts.

These weird, long-winged seabirds look a bit like penguins crossed with seagulls and they really do have bright blue feet, as though they’ve waddled across a wet painting of the ocean.

Our group was lucky enough to witness the mating ritual, which is a strange dance-off between the male boobies, a bit like men vying for a girl’s attention at a party. The female looks on from the perimeter, trying to decide which one she prefers as they flap and strut and lift each leg up in an effort to look masculine. The winner gets the girl and the privilege of building her a nest, and the loser goes off to try his luck with someone else.

It was during the enjoyment of this ritual that we also witnessed our first group of ‘serious birdwatchers’. You won’t see as many birdwatchers anywhere as you will in the Galápagos. As you can imagine, it is the holy grail for fans of things-with-wings and you can spot these people a mile off, usually because their telescopic lenses protrude into the corners of your humble iPhone snap shots, appearing way before you see the ‘serious birdwatcher’ in person.

What really sets a ‘serious birdwatcher’ apart from a regular birdwatcher, however, is the note-taking. Not content with photographing every single feather on the head of an Española mockingbird, or the butt-crack of a swallow-tailed gull, the ‘serious’ of the species must then whip out a clipboard and pen and busy themselves with noting why these feathers are so very different from the ones they shot yesterday, plus the date, time and exact location of each shot.

I know this because I stopped one man, part of a bird-watching tour group, and asked what they were all writing down. He was drooping under the weight of his equipment and his Canon lens was so long and so unconscionably wide, I’m pretty sure the Hubble Space Telescope would’ve had a tough job competing for close-ups.

‘We have a competition, with prizes when we get home,’ he said proudly. ‘We have to make sure we all get shots of different birds.’

‘But how do you tell the difference?’ I queried. ‘They all look the same to me!’

He frowned then, as though I was the most despicable racist ever to walk the face of the earth. ‘Every single one is unique,’ he said curtly, and lumbered on in his quest.

It seems I have a lot more to learn when it comes to discerning my feathers from my … feathers … and my carrots from my papayas, perhaps. But suffice to say that apart from the little problem of seasickness (which, by the way, was cured once